Bio
Shortly after completing her MLIS degree, Virginia McClure apprenticed with Dr. Paul Holbrook, Director of the King Library Press. During that time her work included setting and distributing type, operating, and maintaining Washington handpresses and Vandercook proof presses. She assisted with many of the King Library Press projects, including printing cards, broadsides, and printing and binding books. She was also able to design and execute a few of her own projects. Virginia is currently an MFA candidate in the University of Alabama’s Book Arts Program.
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A well designed/executed book is like a great meal. All the components are thought out, the best ingredients utilized, and the dishes are planned to complement each other. The enjoyment of the whole is the sum of the parts, more than one specific dish. Similarly, a print or broadside is lovely as a single “dish”, but a book brings all of the elements together, nourishing one on many levels, and lingers in our memory as an experience, as much as a container of information.
As a librarian, I see the Book as a container of information and a delivery method of information. As an artist, I see Books as intriguing structures, expressions, and as beautiful objects. To an information professional, the physical form of the book should not matter, aesthetics should not influence the contents, but an artist believes they do.